System of the Century: Nintendo 64 at Number 1

Code named “Project Reality” it was launched in 1996, named by the time Magazine as “Machine of the Year” and launched with 3 absolutely brilliant games – Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64 and Saikyo Habu Shogi (Japan only).

While competing with the PlayStation and Saturn it had, unlike its competition, a 64-bit processing unit based on the MIPS processor architecture owned by Silicon Graphics. This meant it was better at displaying polygon 3D graphics and it’s cartridge system meant fast loading times but higher manufacturing costs.